7 Peace Heroes you didn’t know about

Most have heard about Gandhi, Martin Luther King and Mandela. However, our history is full of visionary humans embodying peaceful resistance.

Let me share some more of those that have walked the path to peace through their lives:

1. Peace Pilgrim

This is the way of PEACE, overcome evil with good and falsehood with truth and hatred with love

A woman that crossed the United States on foot a dozen times during the cold war, carrying only a toothbrush and a comb and promoting her timeless message of peace. Wiki info

2. SkennenrahawiGreat Peacemaker

Skennenrahawi was a prophet of the Huron natives of North America, who’s vision united the Iroquois tribes in a conferedacy and became known as the Great Peacemaker. Wiki info

3. Bartolome de Las Casas

Did you know about this bishop who critized the European invasion of South America and the the brutal behaviors of colonialists? Upon witnessing the atrocities first hand, Bartolome devoted his life to human rights, several centuries before it was made into the UN resolution that our civilization stands upon today. Wiki info

4. Mairead Maguire

Mairead was the youngest person ever to receive a Nobel Peace prize for her work in reconciling the Irish factions in the seventies with the organization Peace people. I had the honor of meeting her at a peace conference in Sweden and got to hear incredible stories of her ongoing work as she had just been to North Korea as part of a women’s peace movement. Wiki info

5. Masahisa Goi

May Peace Prevail on Earth

Mr Goi message of peace and unity can be seen today all over the world in the form of peace poles. There poles carry this prayer and wish for a world in peace and it lights my heart everytime I pass one on my way.

I recently got some beautiful gifts to pass out on my walk from the World Peace Prayer Society, an organization started by Goi.

6. Wangari Mathaai

Maathai founded the Green Belt movement, a reforestation organization that planted trees throughout her home country of Kenya and later on in Africa at large and it has now planted more than 50 million trees! For this and her sustained efforts for a democratization of Kenya she was awarded the Nobel Peace prize. Wiki info

7. Tawakkol Karman

She has been called “Mother of the revolution” in the Yemeni uprising 2011, which was part of the Arab Spring.

Tawakkol is journalist, politician and human rights activist that received the Nobel Peace prize for her efforts for Women’s rights, democracy and peace in Yemen.

8. Mother Earth Peace Hero

Okey, I can’t stop myself, I’ll add a eighth person. Peace Pilgrim and Wangari Maathai have something in common, they have both met with another Peace Hero, the American-Swedish Tonia Monia.

We met when I organized the peace and climate march in Gothenburg 29/4 as she is the director in Green Cross Sweden.

The Green Cross is a foundation devoted to peace and environmental issues created by former Sovjet leader Michail Gorbatjov.

Guess if I was surprised when Tonia told me that Peace Pilgrim passed her house when she was about 12 years old and told her some amazing stories.

When I was about 12 years this woman came to stay at our house, and to this day I don’t know where she came from. She was very kind and we sat together and she told me many things, about her life mission for peace, that she didn’t own anything, have any money and that she walked and walked for peace. She said things like never loose faith in life as it always works out… how she found a box to sleep in under a bridge on a frozen night. She said her name was Peace Pilgrim. Later I found this picture. I didn’t know who she was until a few years ago when I saw websites about her and when someone in Sweden gave me her small books to give away. Life is amazing wouldn’t you say.

I feel the winds of inspiration lifting my spirit from these and many more peace heroes. It is thanks to their vision and embodiments of their dreams that I can remain truthful to my own wish, the same wish all beings on this planet share deep within:

The wish for World Peace

This is the flag I’ll be carrying around the world

It’s just a few weeks left before I’m leaving Sweden and in case you didn’t know, last weekend there was a truck hijacking in central Stockholm and the hijacker killed several people walking in the street.

These past days the entire country has been showing such a tremendous spirit of peace and unity after the crime. More than 50.000 gathered the day after, hugging each other and the police.

More than 50.000 peace heroes in Stockholm central square, a spontaneous manifestation for love and unity

The government immediately began to talk about how to prevent hijacking of trucks in a rational manner.

This is exactly the kind of spirit we should continue exporting instead of guns and bombs.

Meet violence with love, the strength of community and proactive decisions

Thank you for reading

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